REPORT 


OF 


COMMISSION  ON  PRISON 

LABOR 

TO  THE 

LEGISLATURE 

STATE  OF  IDAHO 

TWELFTH  SESSION 


COMMISSION 


JOHN  W.  SNOOK,  Chairman 
W.  L.  GIFFORD 
D.  C.  McDOUGALL 


Arch  Cunningham  &  Co.,  Printers  and  Binders 
Boise,  Idaho 


N  • 


'  '  i~.  ' 

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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive^ 
in  2018  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi00idah_0 


»  L 


Report  of  Commission  on  Prison  Labor. 

To  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Idaho^  Tzuelfth  Session: 

We,  the  undersigned,  your  Commission  on  Prison  Labor, 
in  accordance  with  Chapter  220  of  the  Session  Laws  of 
the  State  of  Idaho,  Eleventh  Session,  beg  leave  to  report 
as  follows : 

The  employment  of  prisoners  in  this  state  is  a  very  im¬ 
portant  problem.,  and  one  vitally  connected  with  the  success¬ 
ful  management  of  the  penitentiary.  There  are  at  present 
several  systems  of  prison  labor  in  practice  in  the  United 
States.  T  He  "fEree'  "most  widely  adopted,  are  the  ^Contract 
System,  the’^tate  Account  System  and  the-State  Use  Sys¬ 
tem.  Under  the  first,  known  as  the  Contract  System,  the 
state  provides  the  convict  labor  at  a  specified  price  per  day 
to  the  contractor  who  furnishes  the  material,  machinery  and 
instructions,  keeps  the  convicts  steadily  employed  and  takes 
the  manufactured  product,  the  state  having  no  further  re¬ 
sponsibility  than  providing  officers  to  maintain  order  and 
discipline  and  shop  room  for  the  employment  of  the  con¬ 
victs.  Another  form  of  the  Contract  System  is  the  piece 
price  system,  under  which  the  contractor  providing  the 
material  takes  the  product  so  manufactured  and  pays  the 
state  so  much  per  piece  for  it.  This  is  the  system  that  is 
now  in  use  in  the  South  Dakota  Penitentiary  at  Sioux  Falls, 
where  they  have  a  contract  with  a  shirt  company  whereby 
the  company  furnishes  all  material  and  pays  the  state  so 
much  per  dozen  for  the  jnanufacture.  The  shirt  company 
also'  furnishes  the  penitentiary  with  the  sum  of  one  hundred 
twenty-five  dollars  per  month  as  salary  for  the  superin¬ 
tendent  who  is  employed  by  and  subject  to  the  direction  of 
the  State  Board  of  Charities  and  Correction  of  the  State 
of  South  Dakota,  who  have  charge  of  the  penitentiary. 
This  method  nets  the  state  from  fifty  to  sixty  cents  a  day  per 
prisoner. 

Under  the  second  system,  known  as  the  State  Account 
System,  the  state  provides  the  material,  machinery,  and 
means  for  the  entire  management  of  the  business,  disposing 
of  the  manufactured  product  on  the  market,  the  state  being 
benefitted  by  the  profit  that  the  business  may  produce,  and 


3 


responsible  for  any  loss  that  may  be  sustained,  the  same  as 
any  outside  business  or  corporation. 

The  third  system,  known  as  the  State  Use  System,  pro¬ 
vides  that  the  prisoners  shall  all  be  employed  by  the  state 
on  its  own  account  and  that  no  article  shall  be  manufactured 
except  such  as  may  be  used  in  other  state  or  municipal  in¬ 
stitutions.  This  is  the  system  in  vogue  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  where  it  has  come  nearer  to  making  a  success  than  in 
any  other  state  because  of  the  dense  population  of  the  state 
and  the  large  number  of  state  institutions.  However,  we 
are  of  the  opinion  that  the  population  of  this  state  is  entire¬ 
ly  too  small,  and  state  institutions  too  few  to  make  this 
system  practicable  here,  as,  excepting  in  densely  populated 
states,  it  would  not  prove  of  advantage  to  the  taxpayers  or 
the  convict. 

The  Chairman  and  Secretary  of  this  Committee  visited 
the  following  institutions  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  the 
various  methods  adopted  for  the  employment  of  prison 
labor : 

We  first  attended  the  National  Prison  Congress  held  in 
Omaha,  Nebraska,  and  on  our  return  visited  the  Federal 
Penitentiary  at  Fort  Leavenworth.  At  Leavenworth,  the 
prisoners  are  being  employed  in  the  manufacture  of  brick 
and  in  the  construction  of  buildings.  We  next  visited  the 
Kansas  State  Penitentiary  at  Lansing.  Here  a  large  per¬ 
centage  of  their  prisoners  are  engaged  in  coal  mining,  as  the 
state  owns  a  large  coal  mine  directly  underneath  the  peniten¬ 
tiary,  the  entrance  to  the  mine  being  inside  the  prison  en¬ 
closure.  They  also  have  a  twine  factory  in  operation  in 
which  binding  twine  is  manufactured.  This  industry  has 
been  an  unqualified  success  in  Kansas,  so  we  were  informed 
by  the  warden,  chiefly  because  of  the  method  of  disposing  of 
the  twine,  the  Kansas  plan  being  to  sell  direct  to  the  dealers, 
thus  placing  the  twine  in  easy  reach  of  the  farmers  at  prices 
considerably  below  the  price  of  the  trust  article  thereby 
making  the  dealers  their  friends  instead  of  enemies.  This 
method  of  disposing  of  the  twine  product  was  so  success¬ 
ful  that  the}^  furnished  twine  to  the  trade  in  ninety  out  of 
the  one  hundred  and  five  counties  in  the  state,  and  rejected 
orders  to  the  amount  of  three  hundred  fifty  thousand  pounds 
outside  of  the  state  which  they  were  unable  to  fill. 

In  Colorado,  the  prisoners  are  used  in  the  construction 
of  roads.^^WTthe  time  we  visited  the  Colorado  Penitentiary 


4 


about  fifty  prisoners  were  engaged  in  the  making  of  roads 
about  thirty-five  miles  from  the  penitentiary  under  the  di¬ 
rection  of  an  overseer  and  one  assistant,  the  laws  of  Col¬ 
orado  providing  that  convicts  of  the  state  penitentiary  un¬ 
dergoing  sentence  in  accordance  with  law  who  shall  or  may 
be  engaged  in  work  connected  with  said  penitentiary  out¬ 
side  the  walls  of  said  institution  and  known  as  trusty  prison¬ 
ers,  and  who  shall  be  employed  on  the  janches  and  in  the 
gardens,  lime  kilns  or  quarries  or  any  other  class  of  work 
wuThdut  the"~walls  of  said  prison,  and  who  shall  conduct 
themselves  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  said  prison  and 
perform  their  work  in  a  creditable  manner,  may,  upon  ap¬ 
proval  of  the  warden,  be  granted  such  good  time  in  addition 
to  that  allowed  by  law  as  the  Board  of  Penitentiary  Com¬ 
missioners  may  order,  not  to  exceed  ten  days  in  any  one 
calendar  month.  This  granting  of  additional  good  time  is 
not  to  be  construed  as  affecting  any  so-called  trusty  prisoner 
who  shall,  at  any  time,  be  engaged  in  the  regular  prison 
duties  while  confined  within  the  walls  of  the  penitentiary. 
The  prisoners  at  this  time  were  employed  on  the  road  from 
Canyon  City  to  Colorado  Springs,  which  road  has  since 
been  completed,  the  state  furnishing  the  men  and  teams,  the 
different  counties  through  which  the  road  passess  furnish¬ 
ing  all  supplies  used  by  the  prisoners  and  feed  for  the  teams. 
This  system  has  proven  very  profitable  in  Colorado  as  they 
have  a  prison  population  of  eight  hundred,  and  as  about 
twenty  per  cent  of  the  prisoners  of  most  penitentiaries  can 
be  employed  in  road  work  with  comparative  safety. 

In  yj2.h,  where  we  visited  the  penitentiary,  the  prisoners 
are  employed  in  road  work  and  they  have  a  sock  factory  in 
which  a  number  of  pnsdners  are  furnished  wiffTFiTipId^nnent, 
which  is  run  on  a  State  Account  System,  the  manufactured 
product  being  disposed  of  on  the  market,  the  state  being 
benefited  by  any  profits  that  the  business  may  produce. 

In  the  Chicago  Hnnsp  of  Correction,  one  of  their  indus¬ 
tries  is  a  printing  establishment,  in  which  printing  is  done 
for  the  City  of  Chicago,  which  city  maintains  the  Chicago 
House  of  Correction.  Their  printing  consists  of  reports  of 
officials,  boards  and  institutions,  books  of  law,  rules  and  in¬ 
structions,  letter  heads,  bill  heads,  statements,  etc. 

The  penitentiary  at  Sing  Sing,  also  has  a  printing  plant 
in  which  ruled  and  prin^d  books  including  ledgers,  journals, 
sales,  cash,  time,  receipt  and  check  books,  special  ruled  and 


bound  books  of  every  description,  ruled  and  printed  blanks 
put  up  in  pads  or  books,  padded,  numbered,  perforated,  etc., 
stationery  of  every  description,  letter  heads,  bill  heads,  state¬ 
ments,  reports,  tags,  envelopes,  blank  forms,  requisitions, 
checks,  drafts,  etc.,  reports  of  officials,  rules  and  instructions, 
reports  of  boards  and  institutions,  books  of  laws,  half  tone 
and  colored  printing  for  catalogues,  booklets,  folders,  etc. 
In  their  carpentering  department,  they  manufacture  office 
desks,  dining  room  chairs  and  stools,  filing  devices,  dressers, 
bureaus,  chi ff oners  and  wardrobes,  school  and  assembly 
room  desks  and  furniture,  hall  and  lawn  settees,  step-ladders, 
etc.  This  is  conducted  under  the  State  Use  System.  Under 
this  S3^stem,  all  articles  that  are  manufactured  and  not  re¬ 
quired  for  use  in  the  penitentiar)^  at  Sing  Sing,  are  furnished 
the  state  or  any  political  division  thereof,  or  for  or  to  any 
public  institution  owned  or  managed  and  controlled  by  the 
state  or  any  political  division  thereof,  and  for  such  prices  as 
are  fixed  and  determined  by  the  Board  of  Managers  thereof. 

The  State  Penitentiary  at  Walla  Walla,  Washington, 
which  was  visited  by  all  the  members  of  the  committee,  have 
in  operation  a  jute  mill  wherein  sacks  are  manufactured, 
which  nets  the  state  approximately^  thirty-five  thousand 
dollars  a  year  and  furnishes  employment  for  all  prisoners  in 
the  institution  who  are  not  employed  at  other  labor  in 
connection  with  the  institution.  This  has  proven  a  very 
useful  and  profitable  method  of  employing  prisoners  in  the 
Washington  Penitentiary.  The  cost  of  installing  machinery 
and  the  construction  of  a  building  for  a  jute  mill  at  our 
penitentiary  would  entail  an  expense  of  about  seventy-five 
thousand  dollars  for  a  fifty  loom  mill,  which  would  furnish 
employment  for  all  prisoners  in  the  penitentiary  not  used  for 
other  purposes,  but  on  account  of  the  uncertainty  of  the 
tariff  on  burlap,  we  hesitate  to  recommend  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  a  jute  mill,  but  the  State  Penitentiary  at  Walla 
Walla  has  another  method  of  employment  for  a  number  of 
their  prisoners  which  appeals  to  us,  and  is  carried  on  under 
the  State  Account  System,  whereby  articles  used  in  the 
various  other  institutions  of  the  state  are  made  at  the  peni¬ 
tentiary.  The  following  tables  show  the  result  of  this  sys¬ 
tem  in  the  tailoring  department  wherein  forty-five  prisoners 
were  employed  for  the  biennial  period  from  October  1,  1910 
to  September  30,  1912  : 


6 


TAILOR  SHOP  BIENNIAL  REPORT 


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Totals  of  amount  manufactured  forwarded . |  $  1,331.18  |  $  8,214.03  |  $  26,453.90  $12,078.50 


TAILOR  SHOP  BIENNIAL  REPORT 

SHOWING  CLOTHING  MANUFACTURED  AND  REPAIRED,  AND  ALSO  AMOUNT  SAVED  BY  CONVICTS’ 

LABOR  FROM  OCTOBER  1st,  1910,  TO  SEPTEMBER  30th,  1912.— Continued. 


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TAILOR  SHOP  BIENNIAL  REPORT 

SHOWING  CLOTHING  MANUFACTURED  AND  REPAIRED,  AND  ALSO  AMOUNT  SAVED  BY  CONVICTS’ 

LABOR  FROM  OCTOBER  1st,  1910  TO  SEPTEMBER  30th,  1912.  g 


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TAILOR  SHOP  BIENNIAL  REPORT 


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Grand  totals  of  manufactured  and  repaired,  etc .  $  26,543.88  $  16,774.47  |  $  42,045.80  $  16,774.47 


In  addition  to  the  tailoring  department,  several  other 
departments  are  carried  on  in  which  articles  are  made  for  the 
various  institutions.  In  the  carpentering  department,  desks, 
tables,  chairs,  sideboards,  and  buffets  are  made  for  use  in  the 
various  institutions.  The  tin  shop  furnishes  its  quota  of 
articles  for  use  in  other  institutions  also. 

We  believe,  of  the  three  systems,  that  the  State  Ac¬ 
count  System  provides  the  most  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
prison  labor  problem,  because  it  comes  more  nearly  within 
the  requirements  of  the  successful  prison  labor  system. 

First,  prison  labor  should  be  productive;  second,  there 
should  be  no  private  interest  in  the  products  of  prison  labor ; 
third,  it  should  be  remunerative  and  make  the  institution  self- 
supporting  instead  of  a  heavy  burden  upon  the  taxpayers  of 
this  state,  and  the  industries  that  are  established  should  be 
selected  with  a  view  to  making  such  industries,  as  can  and 
will,  make  the  institution  self-supporting,  that  will  also  give 
mechanical  employment  to  the  inmate  and  will  best  fit  him 
to  earn  an  honest  living  when  released  from  prison ;  fourth, 
the  prisoner  should  share  in  his  earning  power,  which  pro¬ 
vides  an  opportunity  for  the  industrious  inmate. 

One  or  two  industries  could  be  selected  which  would 
furnish  employment  for  all  the  inmates  except  those  working 
in  the  kitchen  and  other  departments  about  the  prison.  The 
products  should  be  such  as  are  used  by  a  large  portion  of  the 
population,  in  order  that  the  benefits  may  be  as  widely  and 
equitably  distributed  as  possible.  The  State  Account  Sys¬ 
tem,  according  to  Warden  Wolfer,  has  been  very  success¬ 
ful  in  Minnesota,  where  a  binder  twine  plant  has  been  in 
operation  for  nearly  twenty  years.  They  also  have  a  farm 
machinery  plant  in  operation.  Binding  twine  was  first  man¬ 
ufactured  in  Stillwater  in  1891.  The  output  for  the  first 
season  was  three  hundred  thousand  pounds.  The  present 
capacity  of  the  plant  is  eighteen  million  pounds  per  year, 
and  the  total  amount  of  twine  manufactured  since  the  l>e- 
ginning  of  the  plant,  up  to  and  including  the  present  season, 
is  one  hundred  sixty-nine  million,  three  hundred  seventy- 
three  thousand  pounds.  The  report  made  by  the  United 
States  Commission  of  Labor,  treating  on  convict  labor  of 
the  various  states,  placed  the  saving  to  Minnesota  farmers 
at  three  cents  per  pound  on  binder  twine.  If  correct,  it 
means  that  on  the  total  amount  so  far  manufactured  in  the 
Minnesota  State  Prison,  there  has  been  a  saving  to  the  con- 


13 


sumer  of  five  million,  eighty-one  thousand,  one  hundred 
ninety  dollars,  but  to  this  should  be  added  the  profits  to  the 
state  of  one  million,  six  hundred  twenty  thousand,  nine 
hundred  fifty-four  dollars  and  forty-two  cents,  making  a 
grand  total  gain  to  the  farmers  and  to  the  state  of  six 
million,  seven  hundred  two  thousand,  one  hundred  forty-four 
dollars  and  forty-two  cents.  In  addition  to  the  twine  plant, 
Minnesota  has  a  large  farm  machinery  manufacturing  plant, 
but  the  twine  plant  alone  in  Minnesota  shows  an  annual 
profit  varying  from  one  hundred  thousand  to  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars. 

RECOMMENDATIONS. 

We  believe  that  employment  of  prisoners  should  be  di¬ 
rected  entirely  by  the  state. 

We  believe  that  the  first  consideration  should  be  the 
training  of  the  prisoner  and  after  that  the  financial  results. 

We  believe  that  all  the  work  carried  on  in  the  prison 
should  be  so  distributed  that  employment  can  be  provided 
for  all  the  population  of  the  institution,  and  the  production 
resulting  therefrom  of  sufficient  variety  so  that  no  unequal 
burden  may  come  on  any  individual  industry. 

We  would  recommend  that  the  state  quarry  be  operated 
by  prison  labor. 

We  recommend  that  sufficient  land  be  acquired  by  pur¬ 
chase  or  otherwise  to  provide  employment  for  such  prisoners 
as  can  be  employed  at  farm  labor,  as  the  farm  method  of 
handling,  prisoners  is  splendid  economy  and  will  save  the 
state  making  an  appropriation  for  additional  cells  at  the 
penitentiary.  Any  young  first-offender  could  be  immediate¬ 
ly  transferred  to  the  farm,  thereby  saving  them  from  coming 
in  contact  with  hardened  criminals.  A  small  appropriation 
for  necessary  buildings  on  this  land  would  be  necessary. 
The  stone  could  be  cut  at  the  penitentiary  and  shipped  ready 
for  being  placed  in  a  building.  This  farm  could  eventually 
be  used  as  a  reformatory. 

We  recommend  that  an  appropriation  be  made  sufficient 
to  complete  the  building  at  the  penitentiary,  which  when 
completed  will  furnish  room  for  the  employment  of  all 
prisoners  who  are  not  employed  at  labor  on  the  farm,  quarry, 
or  in  the  stone  shed. 

John  W.  Snook. 

W.  L.  Gifford. 

D.  C.  McDougall. 


14 


\ 


